During the filming of “People are Neat No. 1,” the subject, Adam, related a story about a brutal beating of a prostitute named Suzy. Tiffin was able to locate Suzy’s e-mail address and received a heartbreaking slideshow of childhood pictures with the face blurred out and the full story of how this little girl grew to be a part of the sex trade. These sorts of wild tangents (Adam’s piece began with him telling about his job in loss prevention) are a part of “People are Neat’s” conversational nature.

As you move through your day-to-day life, pay special attention to that swirling sea of humanity around you. OK, so this is Bluffton, we tend not to swirl.

But still, take a closer look at some of the faces that populate your world. Strangers, each of them, pass in and out of our lives without a second glance.

And yet, each of those strangers is a million stories waiting to happen.

Behind each of those faces is a tale so uplifting it could populate a thousand movie screens.

A few hours with any of those unfamiliar faces could yield an anecdote so side-splittingly funny you'd share it with friends as if it were your own. Or it could yield a secret so personal it would break your heart to hear it.

We walk around with the vague knowledge somewhere in the back of our minds that everyone around us has a story to tell, if we just sit down and listen. This is something we all sort of know, but never bother to investigate. We know these stories are out there.

To put it bluntly, we all know people are neat.

It just takes a special kind of person to actively seek out those stories.

"I have always loved hearing other people talk about themselves and their lives," said filmmaker Rob Tiffing. "Even as a child I loved sitting and listening to stories being told."

That childhood fascination with other peoples' stories blossomed over time for Tiffin, a recent transplant to Bluffton. Starting at age 18, Tiffin began taking detailed notes of the stories he was told, scribbling them across composition tablets. Over the last nine years, he's filled several. It was in one of those tablets that he penned the short, direct sentence "People are neat," in giant letters across the first page. That sparked inspiration.

"I don't even remember writing it," Tiffin remarked.

Tiffin has worked in film for several years, helping out with other people's movies and even directing his own vision, a film called "Downtime" that starred Larry Holden of "Memento," "Insomnia" and "Batman Begins."

It was during filming of a friend's movie in Vermont that Tiffin came across a Norwegian man named Jan-Espen Slinning. Instead of taking detailed notes in a composition tablet, Tiffin decided to film Slinning's story. The idea finally gelled.

Now, Tiffin has filmed five different personal stories as part of the film series, "People are Neat."

After filming the first four in and around the town of Flowery Branch, Ga., Tiffin was ready to leave his home in Atlanta and seek out a town full of interesting people.

Raise your hand, Bluffton. That's you.

"I was looking for a small-ish town to move to in the south to go and make a bunch of these films. I wanted it to be a place I had never been," said Tiffin. "Around that time my friend that lived in Bluffton went through a divorce and had a place for me to stay until I settled in.... My friend of course sold me hard on Bluffton because he really loves it here and was certain I could find plenty of folks for the films. I moved down without even visiting first."

That friend was Jared Caloi, a Blufftonian born and bred.

"He was living in Atlanta and it was choking him," said Caloi of Tiffin's final days in Atlanta. "I would call and tell him about my daily life... which involves things like riding my bike, riding my bike to the grocery store, riding my bike to groom my horse, cooking fresh caught shrimp and crabs for dinner, boating on the weekends, sitting on my back porch at night and conversing with friends in the clean and quiet air. Simple things that I knew would appeal to Rob. Every time I called him I told him to get down here."

Caloi's obvious enthusiasm for his hometown sold Tiffin on the move, and he soon packed up his film series and trained his lens on Bluffton.

"I do not know much yet, but so far Bluffton to me is a town full of kind and interesting people," said Tiffin. "I really like the historic downtown and the farmers market. There is some scenery that is simply breathtaking."

It didn't take him long to find his first interesting subject - Tiffin met neighbor Vince Terry at the mailbox of their apartment complex and hit it off.

"Vince was recently divorced from his wife of five years, but he started dating her in high school. It is the only girl he had ever actually dated and they never really went on a proper date until after they were in a relationship," said Tiffin of his latest subject. "So Vince was about to go on his first real date in his entire life at the age of 28. That to me is super interesting so that is what I focused on. The nerves, the fear, the preparation and then how it goes."

If Terry, a self-professed private person, had any doubts about sharing his most personal stories with the world, they were quickly eased by Tiffin's caring manner.

"I do not think I would have agreed to do this for anyone else," Terry said.

Over the course of two days, and 20 hours of filming, Tiffin and Terry sat down with a simple non-obstructive camera setup, and Terry told his story.

"Because it is really just a conversation with him you are always keeping eye contact which makes it incredibly easy. I forgot about the camera several times and thought we were just having a friendly chat," said Terry. "In many ways we were.

"His enthusiasm for what people do on a daily basis is crazy and I trust that he won't make me look too bad."

Terry's story will join the four already filmed on the website www.peopleareneat.com where Tiffin has chosen to air the films completely free to the public.

"I am much more interested in sharing these films with as many as people as possible than I am about making money off of them," said Tiffin. "I am able to do this because I finance them all with a combination of private donations and my own personal funds. So I do not have that obligation to make money off of them like I might with another film with traditional investors. Again the goal is to get them seen."

And while the films will screen on computer monitors across the world, the first two installments, "Lee" and "Ghost Facers starring Adam and Suzy" are already touring the festival circuit. The plan is to release the entire series on DVD and Blu-Ray once the festival run is over, which Tiffin estimates to be August of next year, a date that could change.

In the meantime, Tiffin will continue to make his movies, but more importantly, he'll continue to make new friends.

"So far all of the subjects have become my friends and we continue to talk and even hang out long after I have finished their film," Tiffin said. "I think that says something about my approach to the films... I'm just not sure what."

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